New Jersey investor John Aglialoro has agreed to purchase the financially troubled Canterbury Downs race track, which is partly owned by Santa Anita of Arcadia, Calif., according to Aglialoro's attorney. "There is substantive agreement on everything," Bloomington lawyer John Broeker, who represents Aglialoro, said Monday. "We're still working on some of the language to the agreement. It's significant, but it's not a deal-breaking thing."

A film aimed at conservatives and another at history buffs debuted to moderate success this weekend. "Atlas Shrugged: Part I," the first in a potential trilogy of films based on the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand, opened in 299 theaters and grossed $1.7 million, according to an estimate from Salt Lake City-based booking service Rocky Mountain Pictures. And "The Conspirator," about the trial of a woman accused of plotting to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, ended up with a $3.9 million take from 706 theaters.

New Jersey businessman John Aglialoro, who last month bought 100% of Canterbury Downs' stock, has missed a deadline to acquire a reduced mortgage on the race track. But he may try again to strike a deal, his attorney says. Aglialoro's failure to make the Tuesday deadline put holders of the mortgage in position to control Canterbury and jeopardized the scheduled April 27 start of the track's sixth season.

"Rio," a 3-D animated film about tropical birds, should soar to the top of the box office this weekend. The movie, with feathered protagonists voiced by Jesse Eisenberg and Anne Hathaway, is expected to gross $35 million to $40 million in its first weekend, according to people who have seen pre-release audience surveys. The weekend's other new wide release, the horror film "Scream 4," is likely to collect about $27million. "Rio," the latest release from 20th Century Fox-owned animation company Blue Sky Studios, cost about $90 million to produce after tax incentives.

The tinhorn film version of "Atlas Shrugged" fails to rise even to the level of "eh" suggested by Ayn Rand's title. But with so little going on in cinematic or storytelling terms, we can cut straight to the fascinating tea-stained politics of the thing. Conceived as the first of a proposed three-part series, director Paul Johansson's movie is the work of true believers in Rand's pet theory known as Objectivism, which can be described as "Us? There is no 'us'!" In Rand's worldview, it is me-time, all the time.

For the second time in the first 18 days of the meeting, Pat Valenzuela was suspended Wednesday by the Santa Anita stewards. Set down for five days after Flom was disqualified in the first race on opening day, Valenzuela will begin another enforced vacation Saturday for causing interference in Monday's seventh race.

It has taken businessman John Aglialoro nearly 20 years to realize his ambition of making a movie out of "Atlas Shrugged," the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand that has sold more than 7 million copies and has as passionate a following among many political conservatives and libertarians as "Twilight" has among teen girls. But the version of the book coming to theaters Friday is decidedly independent, low-cost and even makeshift. Shot for a modest $10 million by a first-time director with a cast of little-known actors, "Atlas Shrugged: Part I," the first in an expected trilogy, will play on about 300 screens in 80 markets.